CO     / 


28th  CONGRESS,  JJOC.  No.  255.  H^ 

1st  Session. 


TEXAS- ANNEXATION. 


PROCEEDINGS  AND  RESOLUTIONS 


A  PUBLIC  MEETING 

Of  the  citizens  of  Mobile  county  and  city^  relative  to  tfa  annexation  of 
Texas  to  the  United  States. 


MAY  15,  1844. 

Read,  and  laid  upon  the  table. 

PUBLIC  MEETING. 

Pursuant  to  previous  notice  in  the  city  papers,  a  very  numerous  and  re- 
spectable assemblage  of  the  citizens  ot  the  city  and  county  of  Mobile  took 
place  at  the  Mobile  Theatre  on  Friday  evening,  the  3d  of  May,  1844,  (the 
selection  of  the  court-house,  which  had  been  first  announced  as  the  place 
'of  meeting,  having  been  considered  not  sufficiently  commodious  for  "the  oc- 
casion,) to  take  into  consideration  the  subject  of  the  annexation  of  Texas 
to  the  United  States.  On  motion,  F.  B.  Sheppard,  esquire,  was  called  to 
;the  chair  as  president  of  the  meeting  ;  and  John  Bloodgood  and  Robert  D. 
!  James,  esquires,  as  vice  presidents. 

The  meeting  was  then  called  to  order  and  organized  by  the  president- 
f.when,  on  motion,  P.  B.  Taylor  and  H.  B.  Holcombe,  esquires,  were  ap- 
pointed secretaries. 

After  the  president  had  announced  the  object  of  the  meeting,  Percy 
^Walker,  esquire,  rose  and  offered  the  following  preamble  and  resolutions 
vfor  the  consideration  of  the  meeting,  having  prefaced  their  reading  with  a 
*few  exceedingly  felicitous  and  appropriate  remarks. 

Preamble  and  Resolutions. 

The  citizens  of  Mobile,  having  assembled  this  evening  for  the  purpose 
~of  expressing  their  opinions  upon  the  question  of  annexing  Texas  to  the 
United  States,  do  adopt  the  following  resolutions: 

I  Resolved,  That  we  consider  the  annexation  of  Texas  as  being  demanded 
iby  a  high  state  necessity — such  as  warranted  our  Government  in  pur- 
chasing Louisiana  from  France;  and  that  we  can  perceive  no  constitu- 
tional barrier  to  an  act  by  which  we  shall  repossess  ourselves  of  a  territory 
originally  ours. 

Resolved,  That,  as  the  territory  ceded  by  Spain  to  France  in  1800  em- 
braced Texas  in  its  boundaries,  and  as  France  ceded  the  same  to  us  in 

Blair  &  Hives,  print. 


2          .  Doc.  No.  255. 

1803,  that  therefore  our  original  right  to  Texas  was  beyond  cavil  or  dis- 
pute. 

Resolved,  That  as  the  United  States,  at  the  time  it  acquired  Louisiana, 
with  the  Rio  Bravo  as  its  western  limit,  from  France,  stipulated  to  extend 
the  protection  of  their  laws  to  all  of  its  inhabitants,  and,  so  soon  as  the 
population  warranted  it.  to  admit  them  into  the  Union,  in  the  same  manner 
and  upon  the  same  conditions  as  other  States  should  be  admitted,  we  Dep- 
recate the  policy  by  which  the  vast  and  fertile  region  of  Texas  was  lost  to 
us  in  1819;  and  that,  as  the  sovereignty  of  the  soil,  in  this  country,  exists 
in  the  people,  we  deny  the  power  of  Government  to  cede  away  or  relin- 
quish* any  portion  of  the  territory;  and  that  therefore  the  cession  of  Texas 
to  Spain  was  unauthorized  and  illegal. 

Resolved,  That  Texas  being  an  independent  country,  and  acknowledged 
as  such  by  the  great  powers  of  the  world,  she  has,  under  the  recognised 
laws  of  .nations,  a  clear  and  independent  right  to  dispose  of  herself  as  she 
may  think  proper  ;  that  therefore  she  has  lull  power  to  annex  herself  to 
the  United  States;  and  that,  while  we  earnestly  desire  to  secure  the  good 
'  will*  of  all  nations,  we  aie  not  bound,  either  in  law  or  morals,  to  reject  the 
appeal  for  annexation,  because  Mexico  has  refused  to  recognise  the  inde- 
pendence of  Texas. 

Resolved,  That  the  evidences  of  the  design  on  the  part  of  Great  Britain, 
to  appropriate  Texas  to  herself,  as  a  colonial  dependency,  present  to  us 
the  alternative  of  taking  Texus  ourselves,  or  witnessing  its  appendage  to 
England.  And,  in  connexion  with  this  view,  we  would  recall  to  the  mind 
of  the  American  people  the  declaration  of  Mr.  Monroe,  in  1824,  "that  this 
Government  would  regard  the  efforts  of  any  foreign  power  to  colonize  any 
portion  of  the  American  continent,  as  indicative  of  unfriendly  feelings  to 
the  United  Slates;"  a  declaration  full' of  wisdom,  and  affording  us  a  correct 
rule  of  action  at  this  time. 

Resolved,  That,  in  the  language  of  our  fellow-citizens  of  New  Orleans, 
we  consider  the  proposed  annexation  of  Texas  to  the  territory  of  the  United 
States  as  a  great  American  measure ;  to  bend  which  to  party  or  local  uses 
or  prejudices,  is  unworthy  of  a  patriotic  people. 

Resolved,  That  the  manner  in  which  the  proposition  for  annexation  has 
been  received  at  the  north  and  east,  met  as  it  has  been  by  denunciation  of 
the  motives  of  its  friends,  and  threats  of  a  dissolution  of  the  Union,  is  om- 
inous of  evil,  indicating  on  the  one  hand  a  temper  unsuited  to  the  exercise 
of  reason,  and  on  the  other  hand  a  decay  of  that  nationality  of  feeling 
which,  forms  a  fur  stronger  safeguard  to  the  Union  than  any  written  bond  ; 
that  we  art;  bound  to  regard  the  opposition  of  a  portion  of  our  country- 
men of  the  north  to  a  measure  so  vital  to  our  interests  as  the  annexation 
of  Texas,  as  manifesting  a  rancorous  and  settled  animosity  to  the  south 
and  her  institutions  ;  because  that  opposition  is  evidently  founded  upon  the 
fact  that  Texas  is  a  slave-holding  country — thus  establishing  the  purely 
selfish  and  sectional  character  oif  that  opposition,  and  boding  no  good  to 
the  security  of  our  property  and  peace. 

Resolved,  That  while  we  would  prefer  regarding  the  annexation  of 
Texas  as  a  great  national  measure,  from  which  incalculable  benefits  would 
accrue  to  the  whole  country,  we  cannot  be  blind  to  the  fact,  that  the  peace 
and  quiet,  if  not  the  existence  of  the  southern  States  as  sovereignties,  im- 
periously demand  it ;  that  the  transfer  of  Texas,  the  great  key*  to  the  south 
and  west,  to  a  foreign  power,  would  block  up  the  States  bordering  on  the 


Doc.  No.  255,  3 

galley  of  the  Mississippi,  together  with  the  whole  Missouri  region  ;  that, 
upon  refusal  to  annex  Texas  on  our  part,  she  would  become  the  theatre  for 
foreign  intrigue,  and  the  centre  of  movements  utterly  destructive  of  our 
rights  arid  interests. 

Resolved,  That  we  not  only  desire  the  annexation  of  Texas,  from  reasons 
of  state  policy,  but  because  it  offers  a  new  and  wider  field  for  the  diffusion 
of  those  liberal  principles  of  government,  under  the  benign  influence  of 
which  we  have  grown  into  a  great  and  powerful  nation,  and  which  are  the 
handmaidens,  of  religion,  in  ameliorating  the  condition  of  man,  and  giving 
a  larger  and  freer  development  to  his  intellectual  and  moral  faculties. 

Resolved,  That,  apart  from  all  these  reasons,  we  earnestly  desire  annex- 
ation, because  the  people  of  Texas  are  of  our  kin  and  lineage — cc  bone  of 
our  bone,  and  flesh  of  our  flesh,"  members  of  oar  family,  speaking  our  lan- 
guage, taught  in  our  political  school,  reverencing  our  religion, — and  that 
we  shrink  in  abhorrence  at  the  idea  of  her  becoming  a  tributary  to  any 
foreign  power. 

Resolved,  That  a  copy  of  the  proceedings  of  this  meeting  be  transmit- 
ted to  the  President  of  the  United  States,  and  to  each  of  our  Senators  and 
Representatives  in  Congress,  and  lhat  the  latter  be  respectfully  requested 
to  present  the  same  in  the  branches  to  which  they  belong. 

After  the  resolutions  were  read,  they  were  supported  in  a  short,  but  able 
and  animated  speech,  by  Percy  Walker,  esquire ;  in  which  he  reviewed  the 
history  of  the  negotiations  and  treaties,  which  had,  at  one  period,  placed 
the  United  States  in  peaceable  possession  of  the  territory  now  forming  the 
area  of  the  republic  of  Texas,  and,  at  another,  lost  it  to  the  nation,  by  the 
treachery  of  a  Secretary  of  State  of  the  United  States,  who,  having  in  his 
possession  the  evidence  of  the  consent  of  the  Spanish  Government  to  the 
establishment  of  the  Rio  del  Norte  as  the  western  boundary,  actually  ac- 
cepted of  the  Sabine  as  that  boundary,  when  the  Spanish  minister,  then 
accredited  to  the  United  States,  had  full  power  to  accord  the  former  bound- 
ary. He  dwelt  with  singular  force  of  expression  and  felicity  of  thought 
upon  the  incalculable  advantages  to  the  United  States,  as  a  great  national 
measure,  which  the  annexation  would  produce;  and.  on  the  other  hand, 
on  the  disastrous  and  deplorable  consequences  to  the  southern  section  of 
the  Union  which  would  follow  in  the  train  of  events, 'should  this  crisis  be 
suffered  to  pass  away  without  securing  an  object  absolutely  vital  to  the 
peace  and  safety,  if  not  the  political  existence,  of  the  southern  States. 

After  Mr.  Walker  had  taken  his  seat,  Daniel  Chandler,  esquire,  was  called 
up  by  the  unanimous  voice  of  the  meeting.  He  rose,  and,  in  his  usual  able 
and  happy  style,  enchained  the  audience  in  a  speech  of  considerable  length, 
which  was  received  by  the  meeting  with  every  demonstration  of  approba- 
tion. He  fully  sustained  the  whole  spirit  of  the  resolutions ;  and  as  we  are 
not  able  to  enter  fully  into  a  detail  of  his  arguments  in  favor  of  annexation, 
it  must  suffice  to  state  that  he  reviewed  the  prominent  objections  of  the 
opponents  of  annexation,  and  demonstrated  that,  under  every  aspect  of  the 
question,  annexation  of  Texas,  as  a  national  measure,  was  called  for  by 
every  consideration  of  justice  to  Texas,  and  the  honor,  safety,  and  true  pol- 
icy @f  the  United  States.  As  to  the  dread  of  the  resulting  consequence  of 
war  with  Mexico,  or  with  any  other  power,  to  annexation,  he  referred  to 
the  indisposition  of  them  all  to  encounter  the  United  States,  and  insisted, 
with  peculiar  cogency  of  reasoning,  that  from  that  source  we  had  nothing 
to  apprehend. 


Doc.  No.  255. 


He  deprecated  the  introduction  of  party  feelings  into  so  grave  and  mo- 
mentous a  question  as  that  now  presented  to  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
and  invoked  the  meeting,  by  appeals  calculated  to  awaken  all  the  kindlier 
feelings  of  the  heart,  and  the  clearest  and  unbiassed  judgment  of  the  head, 
to  discard  all  party  considerations,  and  leave  their  reason  and  consciences 
free  to  decide  so  grave  and  momentous  a  question. 

He  maintained  that  the  crisis  had  arrived  when  the  question  should  be 
boldly  met  and  decided — that  now  is  the  proper  time — and  that,  were  the 
ambition  of  presidential  aspirants  separated  from  the  question,  all  would  be 
of  one  mind  upon  it. 

After  he  had  concluded,  on  motion  of  P.  Waters,  esquire,  the  resolutions 
were  again  read,  and  unanimously  adopted  by  the  meeting. 

On  motion,  the  proceedings  of  the  meeting  were  ordered  to  be  published 
in  the  city  papers. 

The  meeting  then  adjourned. 

P.  B.  SHEPPARD,  President. 


